This invention relates generally to manufacturing components, and more specifically to methods and apparatus for aligning components for manufacture.
Accurate manufacturing of gas turbine engine components may be a significant factor in determining both manufacturing timing and cost. Specifically, when the component is a gas turbine engine blade, accurate manufacturing of the blade may be a significant factors affecting an overall cost of fabrication of the gas turbine engine, as well as subsequent modifications, repairs, and inspections of the blade. For example, at least some known gas turbine engine blades include a dovetail that typically requires an accurate machining process to create the dovetail profile and under platform surfaces.
To align the dovetail for machining, the blade may be coupled to a fixture that includes at least one surface that locates a plurality of datums on the dovetail and/or other portions of the blade. Similar portions of different gas turbine blades may sometimes be machined on the same machine. However, generally, different engine blades have different datums due to a difference in a size and/or shape of the blades. Accordingly, different engine blades generally require different locating surfaces on the fixture to accurately align the blades for machining. As a result, the entire fixture, or alternatively an alignment member or a locating surface used with the fixture, may have to be replaced to accommodate different blades. However, replacing alignment members or the entire fixture may be time consuming, and thereby increase engine manufacturing cycle times and fabrication costs.